这组身份转换的游戏在当下的文化环境里颇能代表一种趋势，那是在时代转变急剧中对自身地位的疑问。身份的质疑反映了自我转变的可能性，由今天这样的我，这种职业这副长相这个德性，变成另一种形式另一种生活，这种疑惑有真有假，像广告逗欲望而后提供幻起的道具，像季节性的化妆品和服装，苍鑫这两组作品从身份命题上来看，可以反映出作者对自身立场的两种态度。
　　“舔”这组作品他已进行多年，从舔尝各种物品，包括日用品和昆虫，到近来到处游历，在名胜舔吻地面，这个行为已成了他的标识活动，这种采集标本方式的创作可以说是锁定一个动作而将它生活化，把怪癖变为作品，这个收集标本的程式也是苍鑫开拓他个人经验世界的程式，看似小题大做，实则是集腋成裘，成为苍鑫本人的艺术身份。
　　如果把身体与外界的肉体接触作为改变个人体验，进而转化和创造个人身份途径的话，那么与各类行业借取职业身份也同样是开拓个人身份的可能性的程式。“游客身份”这组作品玩味了“他人”与“游客”两个概念，使人反省自我身份的界限。
　　旅游这个活动首先把自我定位成“外人”，亦把“他人”定位在个被猎奇的角度里。作为一个游客，被观光的情景和风情首先就要被推选，被拉开距离，以致成为被猎物或者是探讨研究的对象。可是观光，或观察，都要有拉开距离和拉近距离两方面的往返，才能够妥善地完整地观察，苍鑫这个程式就是进入被观光者的世界的一个办法。这组作品意味了所谓“他人”就是不同的生活方式，多种的行业。最重要的是强调了“他人”是与我不同的，无法替代，只能短暂地排演的角色。
　　要真正进入他人的角色必须分享他对这种角色的憧憬与希望，感受到这角色的无奈与局限，不过作为一个有物权到处嬉戏的艺术家，这种嬉戏的无奈与局限才是他人无法体会的，除非他是个职业的旅客，苍鑫的游客身份让人想到每人身份的多重性，不过这多重性却必须由同情与投入的态度才可能感受得到，不是短暂的角色借拟就能解决，又或者这游客身份其实是苍鑫的艺术家身份的写照。只有艺术家这行业才可以让苍鑫不断地转换身份制服，以游戏人间作为正事来办。

张颂仁

Tasting the Identity of a Tourist

Zhang Songren

　　The identity game represents a trend in China’s contemporary cultural scene. It plays hide and seek with the mirror of the floating world, and is an entertaining way of admitting bewilderment in a time of flux. It also reserves the right to change from one image, one life-style today to something totally different tomorrow. Likewise, the bewilderment needs not be steadfast, and may be fickle like seasonal fashion, serving only the arousal of desire. In Cang Xin we have two approaches to this issue in the series of Communication and Identity Exchange (also known as My Identity as a Tourlst).
　　Cang Xin has persisted with the Communication series for some years now, and his taste buds have serviced cherries and files, buttons and pebbles. His travels in recent years have brought him to ground level contact with monuments in international cities. The performance has now become something of an emblem for Cang Xin. Through persistence he has turned a slightly wayward gesture into a routine, an obssesslon into a work of art. What started as a formula for expanding the artist's experiential horizons has now the cumulative effect of forming his artistic identity.
　　If bodily contact is a working process for identity formation, then the systematic borrowing of the professional insignia of others also expands one's sense of self. My Identlty As A Tourist touches on two ideas, that of the“other”and of the“tourist”, while exploring the boundaries of the self.
　　The“tourist”activity would immediately imply oneself to be an outsider, and the“other”to be the exotic object. Distance is maintained between the sceneries and customs being observed so that they may be appreciated and studied. On the other hand, proper appreciation and study require the tourist to both maintain a distance and to make intimate contact.
　　The working procedure of this series of works by Cang Xin is to enter the world of the“other”while affirming that the “other”is alternative ways of life, with the understanding that the“other”is different, irreplaceable, and only overlaps with oneself during this brief rehearsal of role-play.
　　To truly enter another life is to share the dreams and aspirations of that person, and feel his frustrations and constrictions. Here we find that it is the artist, privileged to　play the game of the tourist, whose frustrations and constrictions cannot be appreciated by another, except the tourist. Cang Xin's tourist Identity comments on the multiple roles played by each person, which are more complex than meets the eye. Or perhaps it is truly the Identity of the artist that is at stake here; after all, only an artist may make a career of exchanging uniforms, and be applauded for playing through life.

作者：张颂仁